


the world ends today (and I'll be dancing with you)

by putarrilla



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:10:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9088501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putarrilla/pseuds/putarrilla
Summary: It's like they are stuck in a cycle. Where they hurt and they miss and they long for and they heal. They keep going in circles. Eventually, someone breaks the tendency. Kara never imagined that it would be Cat. And she never imagined that watching someone float away was not as painful as being pushed out.





	1. our laws fall fighting (tied up and silent)

**Author's Note:**

> so this is pretty angsty  
> like, really angsty  
> it'll get better, eventually, but I hope you are up for the ride.

If she were to be honest, she’d say she was tired.

If she were to be honest, she’d say that the red and blue and yellow grow incredibly dull when the weeks she doesn’t see that specific tone of green stretch into months.

If she were to be honest, she’d say that some days she wishes she could just lie down and feel Astra’s fingers running through her hair, a soft brush of nails periodically against her scalp.

But she doesn’t have the privilege to be honest in that way.

So she keeps her tiredness to herself and keeps putting on her Supergirl suit every single morning, keeps trying to push past Snapper’s critics and slip to his good graces.

She thinks she manages it, after delivering a particularly tough article about the life inside the infamous alien prison that almost blew people’s minds. Literally.

Kara talked to that professor-slash-one-time-drug-dealer she once saved.

He mentioned her aunt twice, about how the woman was a presence acutely felt around the prisoners, and she spent the next minute trying to shake away the knot in her throat and the iron weighting her heart down.

But she keeps on _going_.

Despite missing Astra and despite having Mon-El to worry about and despite James always mentioning he has a video conference with _Ms. Grant_ , Kara never finding a good enough excuse to be in the room while that happens, never finding a good enough excuse to check on the person who _inspires her_.

She keeps going.

She keeps helping the D.E.O capture fugitives and keeps getting herself into near death situations with bad guys.

Kara Danvers may be tired and may admit it if she was honest, but she keeps living her life as if things are okay.

And, for a couple of months she doesn’t even have time to wonder about that part inside of her that seems to be curling into itself. She doesn’t have time because Alex and Maggie hit this really tough patch in their relationship and Kara may feel a lot of things, but she puts it aside when her sister needs her.

When it’s been a year since she’d heard that phrase, that little something that soothed her heart, that little something that reassured her that she'd see that person again, when it’s been a year since she’d last seen that specific shade of green, they find Jeremiah.

The man is almost beaten to a pulp, tossed in a corner by what they later identify as one of Cadmus metahumans.

In that point, when they find the man and Alex’s heartbeat becomes erratic and _dangerous_ , Kara is honestly, truly afraid of what may happen to her sister if they lose him once again.

Things are complicated, after that.

Eliza comes over, means to stay as close to her husband as she can, and Kara makes room for her foster mother just as the woman had done when a certain thirteen-year-old blonde from outer space needed shelter.

Kara tries to reassure her family that everything will turn out fine (even though she feels desperation slowly, but firmly, clinging itself to her stomach).

She tries to reassure her family while running around town in search for stories and the people trying to destroy alien life on Earth.

And when she stops and realizes it, another three months have gone by.

Jeremiah woke from his coma after two and Maggie moved in with Alex after two and a half.

And then, when it’s been so long that her uniform is almost colorless to her, when she is stepping out of a restaurant’s bathroom (that gives her easy access through an open window and a loose vent duct where she can hide spare clothes) she spots a specific tone of yellow. Cut in a specific length and atop a specific body.

When it’s been so long since she’s seen that woman, Kara’s eyes find Cat.

Her boss, her _friend_ (are they friends still?) sits in a stool, her upper body twisted to look behind her, at the arcade in the corner of the room. And when Kara moves her gaze ahead, to where that specific tone of green must be set on, she sees Carter.

Notices immediately how the boy has grown.

Notices immediately how he has a little girl in his lap as he plays on the car-driving interactive machine.

Kara isn’t affected by the elements. And she’s pretty sure that the day is pleasant enough for people to put on loose dresses and shorts. But her chest still flutters.

When Cat turns around, a minute later, eyes drawn to the phone lying on the table, Kara knows that she needs to leave.

She knows it, because if Cat wanted them to meet, wanted people to know she was in town, Kara is sure the woman would have found a way.

Thankfully, of course, the arcade is right next to the exit.

Thankfully, of course, something makes Carter look up, see her, call her name.

Thankfully, of course, her heart is too big and too soft towards the boy for her to pretend she doesn’t listen.

She indulges herself, because she’s allowed to be selfish, once in a while, and lets her lips turn up, up, up, until she’s full out grinning at him.

He stands from the machine, comes closer to her.

“I can’t believe we’d run into you here, of all places.”

Kara tilts her head slightly. She doesn’t understand the innuendo.

“It’s mom’s favorite _secret_ restaurant.” He explains, the girl he is currently supporting on his hip hiding her little face against his neck. “Don’t tell her I told you.”

“Your secret's safe with me.” She pauses, lets her grin morph into a fonder smile. “I didn’t know you guys were back from… England, was it?”

“Yep.” Carter fixes his hold on the girl and it seems such a grown-up act for him that she wonders if she’ll have to stop thinking about him as a boy. “Got in a couple of days ago.”

“Well, it’s really good to see you.”

And then she acts like a proper adult and looks into his eyes pointedly before shifting her gaze to the child in his arms.

“Oh, this is Abby, my sister.” His smile gets so wide that Kara is afraid, for half a second, that his cheeks won’t be able to contain it.

The girl, Abby, looks at her with dark, dark, dark, brown eyes and everything that Kara had been feeling, the tiredness, seems to come into focus.

“We met her when we were in London.”

She notes how he doesn’t use the word adopt, she notes how she immediately knows that Cat has adopted a daughter, not because it is the logical association, but because she catches the signs, the little things all over the child that directly point out Cat Grant as her parent.

The sparkly clip adorning the hairband keeping the girl’s tight curls in place, the perfectly pressed, perfectly fitted violet polka dot dress and its matching, white shorts.

She knows Cat has adopted a daughter and Kara is so very tired and so very _something_ , that she wants to fly out of the place and sleep for hours and hours and hours.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she waves at the little girl.

“Hi, Abby. I’m Kara.”

“She’s mom’s friend.” Carter whispers and does he mean it? Or is it just a simpler introduction than _mom’s former assistant?_

Abby waves back and Kara is tired, but she still feels the urge to caress the little violet-clad back. She doesn't.

“Speaking of her.” Carter says, starting to turn towards the booth where his mother still sits. “Did you see her? I’m sure she’d be glad to catch up with you. I mean, she wouldn’t, with most people, but I’m pretty sure she would, with you.”

“Actually, could you apologize to her for me? I’m in a bit of a rush.” She turns her smile into a regretful one, into one that the boy (teen?) would buy. “Running after some intel for an ongoing article.”

“Ah- alright, I guess.” He frowns, seems to study her for a moment and he’d never reminded her so much of his mother as he does, then.

“I’m truly sorry, kid.” She checks her phone, pretends to read something, so it’d seem like an important text. “I really have to go.”

“It was good seeing you, Kara.” He still looks at her with that soft frown as she starts backing away and she feels heavier, turning her back to the duo in that instant, than she’d felt while carrying Fort Rozz into space.

 

|||

 

She is sure she truly needs to rest when she doesn’t hear the steps approaching.

When she’s practically alone in Catco and she doesn’t keep at least one ear out for people coming closer to her.

She is sure she needs to rest when a voice hits her and she’s startled.

“This building doesn’t change, does it?”

She is sure she needs to rest when she looks up from her papers and meets that specific tone of green.

“Ms. Grant. I- I. Hi.” Kara smiles. Forces herself to keep it friendly, not the unprotected one she truly wishes to give the woman.

“You met Carter today.”

“Uhm, yes, yes, I did. Did he explain why I couldn’t stay? I’m sorry I couldn’t, but Snapper needed this crazy article STAT and I-”

“Oh, Kara.”

Cat sighs and Kara stops talking. Because her heart gives a tug and the woman is right in front of her, those green eyes are staring back into her and she’s so tired, so so so tired.

“I did miss your rambles.”

It is said with a tight press of lips and when Cat lifts two fingers, fixes Kara’s collar, like that one time, so many months prior, she feels the sting behind her eyes and the desperation in her stomach and the weight in her heart more acutely than she had in such a long, long time.

But then the moment is gone and the woman is turning towards the table in front of them, is leaning forward slightly to look at the scrambled pages and photos.

“What is this one about?”

“There’s been some rumors about some illegal deals between some of National City’s and Metropolis’ governors. Snapper was a bit reluctant on running it, so we’re trying to circle around it for a few editions, see the reaction, before hitting the spot.”

Cat hums in understanding, picking up one of the papers.

Kara watches as the woman runs her eyes through the lines quickly, changing sheets not even ten seconds later.

“And you’re not sure on which story to run first?”

“No, no, we are.” She reaches over across the table and across the woman’s arm to retrieve the only page that doesn’t have anything atop it. “This one” She hands it over and tries not to think of how nostalgic it feels, to discuss Catco’s stories with the company owner. “it’s about a few historical buildings being knocked down in order to build a new department for City Hall.”

Cat nods, but soon sets everything down and stands upward again.

“Did you meet Abby?”

Kara knows that the woman knows she did.

Kara sees the little girl’s soft face, pressed against Carter’s neck.

“She seems pretty amazing.”

“She is.”

Her lungs inflate at that, at how the woman’s whole face seems to come alive at the mention of the girl.

“How- how did you…?”

“How did I adopt her?”

“How did you become her mom.”

Cat smiles because of the phrase and Kara is so deeply tired, remembers the hug they shared over a year ago and thinks that it may feel like resting, if they shared another one again.

“You know how Catco helps a few businesses around each branch?”

Kara nods and tries to pay attention to the words instead of the soft spark on the woman’s eyes.

“The last time I went to England, I came in contact with an orphanage run by a few nuns.” Cat sits on a stool and Kara follows suit because it's hard not to. “They were good people with few investors, so I put them on the list. When I decided to take my leave of absence, I- I needed to go, Kara, I needed to see new places. And Carter’s school had an exchange program with another school over at Yorkshire, so things fell into place.”

Kara reminds herself to breathe, to focus on Cat, to focus on the voice that has been absent from her environment long enough for her to almost forget the warmth it usually got while speaking about Carter.

“I went to visit that orphanage while Carter spent the weekend with his father.”

“Carter’s dad moved?”

“A while before I left.” The woman sitting beside her dismisses it with a wave of her hand and Kara locks the subject away. “Anyhow, I went to visit the place and Abby was there. And she was such a bright soul, I just-” Cat takes a deep breath, smiles fondly. “She was my daughter, as simple as that.”

“And was Carter okay with it? With another kid coming to live with you? My sister and I- she's my best friend, but I know not every foster siblings get along so well.”

“He was the one to suggest it. That I should adopt her.” The blonde meets Kara’s eyes once more and it is grounding, that look. “So I did. We stayed six extra months there so the process could be finalized and then we came home.”

home.

_home._

_home home home_

_they came home_

Kara stands up.

“I’ll be right back.”

And then she walks away.

Walks away from the person who cuts through her crap and who she had missed so acutely.

She walks away from Cat, into a bathroom down the corridor because Cat had come _home_ with progress in her heart and a daughter at her hip and Kara had never left, but had never felt more stuck.

She feels her chest shaking and her eyes stinging and she bites her lips not to cry aloud.

She allows the tears to fall, but only silently.

She should be happier.

She should be so freaking happy because her sister is happy and her foster parents are relatively happy and her foster dad is alive.

Astra is dead and her mom and dad are dead.

Her planet is dead and there is an organization trying to make this a dead place for alien life, too.

She allows herself five minutes.

Five minutes to weep over the things she does not have courage enough to absorb and deal with.

But Cat Grant is a couple of doors down and one does not leave _Cat Grant_ waiting.

When she walks back into the office, the table is organized.

Stacks of papers neatly in line, the chosen article in the middle, alone, perfectly visible.

Cat is still sitting on the same stool.

“Ms. Grant, you didn’t have to.”

“Well, I might as well do something while I waited for you to stop crying.”

Kara sucks in a breath and lets her gaze drop and her head lower a bit.

“I wasn’t. Crying. I wasn’t.”

“In which a year goes by and you’re still a bad liar.”

“Ms. Grant-”

“Look, before I- before I left, I wasn’t good with people I cared about, Kara. I was awful, in fact. But I wanted to find new challenges and _this,_ trying to trust more and help, _this_ _is_ my new challenge. So have a bit of faith in me, okay?”

She looks up again. Because she is allowed to be selfish, once in awhile and Cat, amazing and understanding and _right there_ , is offering something she has been needing since the woman left.

“Everything is just- complicated, I guess.”

And then there is the pinching behind her eyelids and she finds herself sitting beside the woman once more, fingers fidgeting in her lap and throat tight.

“And I really, _really_ could have used your help in a lot of things.”

Then there is silence and she closes her eyes, feels the pinching turning into more tears and she feels so weird, but so deeply grateful for being able to open herself up like this, like Kara, not like the Girl of Steel with her colorfully dull uniform.

Then she hears things shuffling and then, _then_ she feels arms around her and it is so so so comforting, so so so automatic, to fall into the embrace, to take deep breaths and smell _Cat_ all around her.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around, Kara.”

It’s a whisper and she shivers and bites her lips and nods, hugging the woman tighter.

“We’re going to uncomplicate things, alright?”

She nods again and she was right.

She was _right_.

Hugging Cat, feeling the woman’s arms around her, so willingly firm and secure, it takes a bit of the tiredness from within her, is a bit better than ten hours of sleep.

 

|||

 

Having Cat around is like a breath of fresh air.

Not only because Kara had missed her so much (albeit that’s part of the reason).

Cat is _different_.

Not completely, of course. She still almost bites Kara’s head off while they talk on the phone one morning, but the woman apologizes a couple of seconds later, over the dead silence that usually followed Cat’s sharp tones.

Cat apologizes and Kara feels her heart beating against her ribcage.

Cat is _different_.

She stopped drinking coffee, she informs once over message. She bought a pair of sweatpants after twenty years, even though she only puts it on when the children are in bed.

She sits on her living room floor every night, after Carter has done his homework, so they can both go through family photo albums with Abby.

Having the woman around, with her new-found willingness to small smiles and soft touches, has Kara being able to go to bed and actually falling asleep for hours on end.

Of course, Cat doesn’t come back to _work_. Not on the first few weeks of her return.

She pops into the office every day, always in the afternoon and for half an hour tops.

“Leave them on the tip of their toes.” She whispers to Kara one day while the boss leans over the younger woman’s work. “So once that elevator opens at eight AM, they know it’s on.”

They share a smirk and later that day, Kara asks the alien spitting acid all around town to _stop_. She asks. Politely.

It doesn’t work, of course, and she ends up knocking him out with a blow to the head, but she _tries_.

And that means a lot.

Means enough for Alex to smile brightly at her when she flies into the D.E.O. and enough for her to be able to look Eliza in the eyes when she arrives at her apartment.

It’s just her luck, surely, that two days later she runs into Lillian Luthor and the wall Cat’s presence had started to build around Kara comes crumbling down.

She manages to struggle off two of Cadmus’ ultra-agents before she is able to escape.

“They are getting stronger, Alex. A lot stronger.” She says, lying in the sunbed and trying to wrap her head around what she’d seen. “They had Kryptonite embedded in their bodies. Touching them was already _so hard_.”

“But Hank got rid of all Kryptonite, Superman-”

And then her sister gets this angry look and excuses herself. Kara makes enough effort to catch a word out of Alex’s conversation outside the room.

_Red-K._

_Red-K._

_Red-K._

Shit shit shit

Max Lord.

They should have imagined he would find his way into the situation eventually.

When she’s well enough, though, her sister tells her to go home. Says that Cadmus will still have kryptonite-soldiers come morning and there was no use for Supergirl if she wasn’t well rested.

But the thought of going to her apartment, facing Eliza and _Jeremiah_ is too much. The thought of seeing the man who had been stuck with that organization for _so long_ , it breaks her heart.

So she flies around.

Knows that it isn’t wise, knows that she really _should_ rest, because her bones scream for to do so, but, still, she flies.

She takes in the noises of the city until they are mingled enough to almost sound like a song. Takes in the landscape and the smells (pollution aside).

And she also knows that it isn’t wise of her to take a loop around Cat’s building, knows that she is indulging too much in something that she can’t have, but, still, she flies.

Kara is in time to see the ritual her boss had described.

Cat sits on her living room floor, Abby on her lap and Carter to her side, each of the older Grants holding one end of what looks like a hardcover book.

And she must linger for too long, because Carter looks up suddenly, just like he did that day in the restaurant, and catches her observing.

She’s far enough away to rush out of sight, but then again, her heart is too soft and too big towards the teen for her to do so.

Carter stands in a jump, rushes to the balcony.

“Supergirl! Supergirl!”

He calls her, and she answers.

She gets closer and by that point Abby is beside him, little head just in level with the medium-height railing. Cat has a soft smirk on her lips, but the woman still stays seated on her rug.

“Uhm… I’m sorry, but are you the boy who helped with the train and the bomb?”

He smiles.

Wider.

Almost as wide as when he’d introduced his sister.

“Yes! Yes- er, yes.”

She laughs, and she thinks he’d bounce on his feet if he was alone.

“Thank you, for that day. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did without your backup.”

Carter seems to levitate. She wonders if he’d feel the same way, if he knew of her failures as much as he knows about her triumphs.

“And who would have thought you’d be related to the woman who named me?”

Cat approaches them at that statement, eyes on Kara, arms crossed, same smirk on her face.

“Leadership must be on our DNA.” Cat says and Carter rolls his eyes.

His mother’s son, sure enough.

Kara lowers herself in the air a bit, until she’s at eye level with Abby.

“And what’s your name, sweetheart?”

The girl’s curls are loose, now, framing her small face in all directions and her dark skin glows even more against the moon.

Abby gives her a quirky grin and Kara restrains herself not to frown, on that second, because how come this child is not related to Cat Grant?

“We already met, silly.”

The voice is thin, a bit raspy and her accent is prominent, even at such a young age, but the sentence still makes Kara’s stomach drop. Still makes her almost certain that her flying power is out and she is indeed freefalling towards the ground.

Of course it’d take a unknown child two seconds to see through her costume.

Of course the Queen of All Media would be somehow in with it as well.

“What are you talking about? Of course you didn’t.” Carter is looking at his sister with doubt on his brow.

“I’m sure she meant she knows you from the news.” Cat says, picking her daughter up and kissing the round cheek. “But this is my daughter, Supergirl.”

“Nice- Nice to meet you.”

She smiles and says goodbye a couple of seconds later, patting Carter on the shoulder as another thank you before rushing off.

When she does fly through her apartment’s window, it is late enough for her foster parents to be asleep and for her to slip in unnoticed.

Kara takes a shower, puts on her pajamas and, for the first time in some weeks, doesn’t sleep.

And then her phone beeps around two A.M and she wishes for the mattress to swallow her whole.

 

_2:07:46 A.M_

_Cat Grant_

_Care to explain why my daughter thinks Supergirl wears glasses and is called Kara?_

 

She breathes, but isn’t entirely sure that it makes a difference.

 

_2:10:05 A.M_

_Kara Danvers_

_I’m not sure what you mean, Miss Grant._

 

_2:10:34 A.M_

_Cat Grant_

_Are you saying Abby is lying?_

 

_2:13:21 A.M_

_Kara Danvers_

_No, Miss Grant. I just don’t know what it means._

 

_2:13:56 A.M_

_Cat Grant_

_Nothing. It means nothing. Goodnight, Kara._

 

Kara keeps breathing and her lungs keep feeling like they are in flames.

She wishes she could just tell.

Or just disappear at once.

Maybe the D.E.O has a machine for that last one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Run, Run, Run (the version with Kelly Clarkson and John Legend).


	2. our lives don't collide (I'm aware of this)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the kudos, reviews and bookmarks!! you're too sweet and welcoming, you have no idea how much I cherish it!
> 
> ps: every time this thingy shows up °°•°° it'll mean a POV change and this chapter is not yet beta-read, so all mistakes are my own, alright? alright then.

Cat Grant has known very little love in her life.

She’s experienced kindness, of course she has. She wouldn’t have faith in the world if she hadn’t. But being kind and loving are two distinct things.

Her mother has given her some moments of kindness. The soft brush of a finger wiping away a tear when tiny, frail Cat had fallen on the playground. The pad on the knee when grown up, broken Cat had given up her own son.

But her mother has never given her love.

Her father had been the one to do it.

And then he had died.

In truth, Cat has known very little love in her life. Most of it had been produced within her, given to other people. She had loved her father, had loved Carter’s dad on those first, passionate months. She loves Carter, loves Adam.

She thinks she was really close to loving Kara.

Cat has experienced very little love, but she loves her children fully, unconditionally.

Abby had created a new waterfall of love inside Cat’s chest since the minute the girl had crawled into her lap, a few hours after they’d first met, and asked her to read Peter Pan.

Cat had loved her daughter since that instant, the same as she did her boys, when she’d found out she had been pregnant.

She thinks she was close to loving Kara for the way her heart beats faster when Carter tells her the woman had ran off the diner by the mention of meeting with Cat.

She thinks she is close to _still_ loving Kara by the way her former assistant almost falls into her arms when they hug, by the way she feels the need to keep in touch with the blonde, every day after that, by the way Kara reminds Cat of how invigorating it had been, to go to England, to try and be kinder, to try and feel safe enough to not push people.

The difference, however, between loving your children, your father, and loving a stranger, is that family will always be tied to you, family will always count, one way or another and strangers, well, strangers can worm their way into your heart and stay there for a while, create a routine and a sense of fulfilment. And then something can go downhill and those strangers can leave and never come back. They can go away, just like they were never there to begin with, and you are left with a person-shaped hole in your heart.

Cat is fully aware of who Kara is. She is fully aware of Kara, the bright, bubbly nerd, who wears soft colors and smiles like she can outshine the sun. She is also fully aware of Kara, the super hero. Kara, the alien. Kara, the _Supergirl_.

She was willing to let it go, to let things pass because her return to the country had been a new beginning, or _should_ _have_ been so until Kara lied, again.

She was willing to look through the escapes and glasses and the woman’s giddiness whenever the Girl of Steel was mentioned.

That is, until her four-year-old daughter picked up the signs and connected the dots.

“Can people only wear glasses sometimes?” Abby asks, tucked in her bed, little brown eyes staring up at Cat and making her chest twist and expand.

“Well, I only wear mine to read. Why is that, sweetie?”

“Kara wasn’t wearing hers today.”

“And where did you see Kara today?”

“She was flying outside.”

Cat breathes, smiles (despite wanting to press her lips together in a fine line), kisses Abby’s forehead.

“We’ll talk more in the morning, alright?”

Her daughter nods up at her.

She messages Kara hours later. Begging and praying to something out there that the woman tells the truth.

_just say it just say it just say it_

Kara doesn’t.

Kara lies and Cat dismisses the subject and the sting in her eyes.

She’s trying to change and she thinks she is still close to loving the woman. Maybe she’s _too_ close.

Maybe it’s better this way.

Maybe it’s better for them both that Kara keeps denying the obvious. That way Kara remains someone she can count on, someone who will most likely keep coming back into her life. Not a stranger, not someone where there is bitterness and hurt.

Perhaps it’s better to keep the woman at arm’s length, close enough to touch but not enough to squeeze too much, to bruise and break.

Perhaps Kara is the smarter one out the two of them.

 

°°•°°

 

Sometimes, she forgets how frail humans really are.

Sometimes she forgets and lets herself be pulled into the constant of life.

Wanting or not, she got used to having Eliza and Jeremiah around. She worked her routine around them. Bought extra food, toilet paper, came home late enough on most nights of the week so her foster parents are already spooning in bed.

(that last part is gross, but whatever, is not like she ever caught them doing anything more)

However, human beings _are_ frail. So very frail.

She’s reminded of that when she is finishing getting ready for work, her ear out for her phone, hoping, desperately so, that Cat will text again, maybe even call.

She’s reminded of that when she hears something big, heavy, smacking into the floor.

Kara is already there when Eliza starts screaming, but the sound is fitting enough for the situation.

Jeremiah is on the floor, skin a faint tone of green and now that she’s seen Cat’s eyes once more, she’s all but had it with the color.

She tries to step closer to the unconscious man, Eliza by his side, scream done and still reverberating on Kara’s ear drums. She tries to step closer to the man despite recognizing the emerald glow on his skin and the sharp twists on her belly.

Kara not only tries, she _does_ step closer. And then her stomach twists even more and she feels the liquid coming up her throat at once.

Sometimes she forgets how frail humans really are.

Alex tries to hold it together on the HQ while they run some tests on her father, but if there is one thing Kara knows, that is how to read her sister.

She extends a hand and Alex takes it, laces their fingers.

Kara doesn’t know if she’s ever seen the brunette so torn.

“He was okay, he was _fine_.” Eliza keeps repeating.

He was. He should have been.

 _It’s all my fault it’s all my fault it’s all my fault_.

Kara keeps thinking.

Until there is a ring and the three of them look sharply at her uniform. She’s put it on in a haste. It doesn’t show. The fabric is lifeless even for that.

She pulls out her phone and reads the ID on the screen.

_Cat_

_Cat is calling and Cat is nearby and Kara had lied, again._

She answers because Alex tells her to, tells her that it is _Miss_ _Grant_ and _Miss Grant_  is important too.

“Mi-”

“I know you’re not my assistant anymore, but I did fire mine when I left, so I need your skills for the afternoon.”

“Miss Grant, I-”

“Yes, yes, it is a last-minute thing, but I’ve just talked it over with Carter and it’s final, I’m going back to work ASAP. And of course that demands a party, so I need to plan. I mean, _I_ don’t need to. You do.”

“I’m a bit busy today, Miss Grant.”

“Fine, come over after whatever it is you are doing, then.”

“Miss Grant, I’m sorry but, uhm, I can’t today.” Her voice cracks at the sign of J’onn and she knows Cat hears it, she _knows_ so because it takes a couple of seconds before the sharp, comforting sound comes back up through the line.

“Did something happen?”

It is such a soft, soft question that Kara thinks she may just break down after all.

“Something did, yes. I have to go, though.”

“Alright.”

Kara wants Cat to ask what, exactly, happened. Kara wants Cat to come over. Kara wants Cat near and wants another one of those hugs.

But then again, Kara did want her family to be alive, Kara did want Jeremiah to be happy, so Kara usually wants things she cannot have.

“Bye, Miss Grant.”

“Goodbye. And Kara?”

“Yes?”

“When you need me, you can call me Cat.”

She bites her lip, closes her eyes and nods. And then she realizes that the woman can’t actually see her, so she says her thanks and hangs up.

“He is stable.” J’onn says as soon as she takes the phone away from her ear. Her sister breathes, her foster mother doesn’t move. “But unfortunately still unconscious. We’re afraid the exert of keeping the kryptonite hidden for so long and the relaxation process of finally releasing it may have caused his body to go into a sort of comatose.”

“Do you know when he might wake up?” Eliza finally says and her tone is low, grave.

“It depends on him, really.” J’onn tries to look the woman in the eye, but frowns when the blonde doesn’t allow him to.

That is when Eliza finally changes her position.

She stands. Turns around. Heads for the building’s balcony.

Alex makes to go after her because the movement was sudden and the woman had a haunted gaze that made them afraid she would do something stupid.

The Martian in front of them prevents her sister from doing so.

“She wants to be alone, that’s all.” His voice is low, too, but warmer.

It is in moments like these that they remember the mind reading ability.

And then he leans over, squeezes their upper arm gently, reassuringly, before also giving them space.

“I’m sorry.” Kara says and she has never meant anything more than she means that. “You almost lost him, _again_ , because of me. Because I’m the target of some sick Cadmus’ game.”

“I don’t give you credit.” Alex whispers, arms folded and chin tight. “Lilian Luthor? She can have the credit for this one. Maxwell Lord? He can have it too. But not you, Kara.”

Her sister turns, takes a string of hair out of Kara’s face with soft eyes.

“You’re good and brave and the most amazing person I know.”

Alex says it, so it stings more than if anyone else had.

“He could have died.”

“Kara, I thought he was dead for almost half of my life. It was twisted, of course, but _you_ being Supergirl kick started this whole journey so I could find out that my _dad_ is alive, that he was alive all this time.

“They did make his body a walking-kryptonite, but at least he is here and we got to spend time with him and love him and be _near_ him.”

It hits her.

In an instant, it hits her.

“I didn’t.”

“What?” Alex frowns, steps closer.

“I didn’t spend time with him, Alex. Not enough. I was so ashamed and scared and _tired,_ so tired. I couldn’t spend much time with him. He reminded me what I’d done and what had happened because of me. And now it might be too late. It might be too late and oh my God, Alex, I’m so so so sorry.”

“Kara?”

“He’s pumped full of something that literally is more effective than led to keep me away from him. I already lost parents, Alex, I already lost a foster father. But then he came back and I took it for granted. What if this is a warning? What if this is Rao saying loud and clear that I was meant to be alone and-”

“Kara!” Alex’ hands wrap around her wrist and she stops talking, keeps on crying. She isn’t even sure of _when_ exactly the tears started to fall. “It’s alright, it’s okay, just breathe. _Breathe, Sun_.”

She breathes. For her sister and for the nickname the brunette had tried to give her when they were small. The same nickname she had brushed away after the first time, but had become their important word, something to sign that it was safe to trust, to come into the light.

“I’m sorry.” She mumbles and Alex sighs, shakes her head before running her thumbs through Kara’s cheeks and making their eyes meet.

Her sister holds her gaze for almost ten seconds.

“What’s going on with you?”

 _What_ isn’t _going on with her?_

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No,” Kara swallows, blinks so more tears can fall and clear her vision. “I’m not.”

Alex nods, wraps an arm around Kara’s shoulders.

“Why don’t you catch me up, then? It feels like forever since we talked.”

It does. And Kara feels like she’s been stuck in this life-hula hoop for forever too.

 

°°•°°

 

Kara is not alright, and Cat’s lack of want to dig further into it hits her stomach like a knife.

Of course she wants to soothe the younger woman’s pains, but still, she is too close to loving Kara and Cat doesn’t think she can handle everything right now. Abby’s persistent nightmares, Carter’s dad busting her balls about moving back to the US, getting back to work.

Cat Grant can do a lot, but she doesn’t think she can handle loving someone so desperately as she thinks she will love Kara if she allows herself to tip over the edge.

She has self-control, her mind has a survivor instinct that she worked hard to develop.

So her easiness to let Kara hurt alone across town is a trainwreck of awareness.

She is letting it go. Whatever it is that pulls her to the woman she is almost sure wears a cape on her free times. Cat is letting it go.

Her driver parks in front of CatCo, so she rolls her shoulders, releases the lip she had caught between her teeth.

This is a new phase, a new point for her company. And if she doesn’t remind herself to bring that tiny spark of kindness she’d nurture to the surface, it’ll just be the same old media empire.

She pulls the spark up, thanks her driver and still sees the surprise on his eyes.

It shakes something inside her, shuts the Kara subject and the soft analgesic her mind seems to provide for the task of extracting the woman from her life.

She _is_ letting it go.

Cat meets James on the door of her soon-to-be-again office. He has a nervous smile, mostly because she hadn’t exchanged many words with him about getting back to work.

Oh, well.

They settle everything, she tells him about the party.

He is amazingly willing to help.

If she would let herself be honest, he had been a good replacement. And she did learn to trust him, despite his obnoxious charms and his stupidity on losing Lucy.

“Miss Grant?” He has an arched eyebrow in question. She matches it with one of her own.

“Yes?”

“Do you know if anything has been going on with Kara?”

“Why should I know more than you do? Weren’t you _super_ friends or some- oh, I see.” She doesn’t, really. Knows that the woman she is letting go of and the man standing before her are done and over with. But she can’t be all pleasantries all the time, people might guess she suffered a brain injury otherwise. “Night entanglements got sour come morning?”

“Wha- no! No. We’re- we’re friends, good friends. But just friends, now.”

“Now?” She wiggles her arched eyebrow and he blushes, visibly gulps. She lets the question hang in the air for a couple of seconds, lets him try to get his voice back before “Oh, relax, Olsen, yours and Kara’s romantic past is none of my business. Why are you asking me about her, anyway?”

He takes more seconds to switch into himself once again.

“She hasn’t been picking up any of my calls.”

That is slightly interesting. Because Kara had picked Cat’s call after only three rings.

No, actually? Scratch that. It is not interesting. Cat is letting Kara go. Cat can’t handle loving the woman, maybe once upon a time, she could have, but not on her present circumstances.

“I thought she may be talking to you, instead.” The man carries on and Cat holds herself in place not to take a deep breath. It doesn’t matter that even Kara’s friends think the blonde-almost-surely-superheroine would want to talk to Cat out of anyone else.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t.

“Well, I did talk to her before coming over.” She tries, knows her voice is in its normal pitch. Knows she seems calm, but the slight tilt of James’ head makes her think he sees right through it. “She said something had happened, didn’t get into details.”

_I didn’t ask for details_

_I didn’t really feel like it_

_I’m letting her go, so you can straighten that football head of yours_

“Oh.”

He nods.

She excuses herself out of there.

She had promised her daughter to go backpack shopping that day, anyway.

Abby starts preschool the following week.

The girl is excited.

Is even more excited when Cat arrives home, shoos the nanny away and takes over fixing the girl’s curls.

Abby is sweet and likes touching, likes to be touched back as well.

When the girl has her nightmares (usually once a week, now, but had had those every night on the first months since she had come to live with them) Cat finds herself squeezing into the child’s bed, hugging the monsters away and humming softly.

Abby only falls asleep again by laying her head atop Cat’s chest and listening to the sounds coming from within.

Abby is sweet and likes touching, so while Cat finishes the girl’s hair, her daughter watches her through the mirror from the purple-princess-vanity.

“How do you like it, munchkin?”

The child chuckles, nods her appreciation and Cat smiles.

She’d picked up the nickname back in England and Abby loved it, Carter was amused by it, so she uses it as much as possible.

Five minutes into the car-ride towards the stores, Cat hears her phone beeping in Abby’s hold, the girl playing a children’s game Carter had installed.

“Uh-oh” The child mumbles, giving Cat the device.

It is other worldly, really, how much her children make her smile

She takes the phone and Abby leans into her side to peek at the message, despite not knowing how to read.

 

2:10:45 PM

_Kara Danvers:_

_I’m sorry._

 

Cat puts her arm around her daughter, looks out into the city she’d missed for a year.

“Can I pick the color of the ba- bac-” Abby asks, a bit shy and those are the moments she remembers the girl had learned, from looping from foster home to foster home, not to ask for anything.

“Backpack?” Cat tries and the girl nods. “You can pick any backpack you want. Color, sparkles, no sparkles, princesses, cars, whatever you see and love.”

“Okay.”

 

_2:11:32 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_What for?_

 

_2:12:01 PM_

_Kara Danvers:_

_For not being able to say it._

 

Cat scoffs, Abby is too busy looking at her shoes to notice.

 

_2:14:17 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_It’s fine, Kara._

 

_2:14:56 PM_

_Kara Danvers:_

_Is it?_

 

_2:15:29 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_It should be._

 

It should be. It really should be fine because it is Kara’s secret to tell and Cat has a business to run and children to take care of.

It feels like a lie, that it should be fine, but she is an expert on dismissing the guilt that usually follows things like lying.

There are no texts after that and they arrive at National City’s high-end accessories’ street.

It’s later, when they’ve been to two shops, are entering their third one, that she is sure she _needs_ to cut Kara loose.

It’s when Abby tightens her hold on Cat’s hand, points at a backpack on the top shelf.

“Mommy, that one! Can we get that one?”

Cat’s heart swells and her throat all but closes.

_Mommy_

_Abby had said mommy and had directed it at Cat._

_For the first time._

She nods and swings Abby up and into her arms at once, trying not to make too big of a deal out of the name.

She has known Abby was her daughter since the moment Peter Pan had been thrusted in her hold, but the girl acknowledging their bond is something else entirely.

“Of course we can, my love. Of course we can.”

It is final, then.

As final as her love for her children.

As final as her love for the city she’d returned to.

Cat cannot afford to play hide and seek with Kara and their feelings anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your beautiful thoughts are very much appreciated and I'll try to reply to all of them. Once again, thank you for reading!
> 
> (title of this chapter from Fools, by Troye Sivan)


	3. all that I ever was (is here in your perfect eyes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who is really grateful for all your loving? that's right, me.  
> and also guess who spent a week at the beach with no internet access and went through a serious writer's block and feels really bad for taking so long to update? yeap, my sorry-ass self again.  
> I hope this chapter makes up for my tardiness and is worthy of all your beautiful shipper hearts, though.

Hank gives them the day off because of Jeremiah. They don’t go home, regardless. They sit in a quiet corner and talk instead.

And even if they _wanted_ to leave, it was unlikely that Eliza would want to stay away from her husband and Kara was afraid to leave and come back to find her foster father really gone.

Alex, sweet, understanding Alex, takes Kara’s hand in both of hers, listens openly, forgives and doesn’t speak much about unfairness.

“I should have been there for you.” Her sister says with trembling lips.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“I got so involved with Maggie and dad and I never realized how much you were fading away.” Alex sniffs. “I’m sorry, Kara.”

Kara shakes her head, feels the knot that had been her insides for months beginning to come loose

They hug. And the embrace is like a warm blanket.

Different from Cat’s. Not like comfort, not like resting, but something alike being glued back together.

It takes the edge off, it makes Kara see a bit more clearly, see a bit of her clothes’ colors coming to life.

When they let go, Kara rests her head on her sister’s shoulder and the brunette caresses her hair. Again, not like her similar experience with the act. Not like Astra’s fingers scraping her scalp gently, soothingly. Alex’s fingers are softer and never come in contact with anything besides Kara’s locks.

“What else is on your mind?”

“Cat is back.” Kara whispers, her eyes closing and the messages from the previous night popping up through her brain

“So?”

“My identity as Supergirl came up again.”

Alex hums in understanding and stays silent for a moment.

“Why don’t you just tell her?”

“I don’t know.”

She sighs. Works her jaw and feels her fingertips tingling.

“I didn’t trust her, Kara. That’s not a secret. But after everything you’ve just told me, I don’t think you can go on without her anymore. And you can’t keep her and also keep this secret.”

“I- Don’t know what to do. I try to tell her, I try because I know I need to, but every time I get close, it feels like my throat just closes up and I take it as a warning.” She sits up straight, away from Alex’s touch, meeting her sister’s gaze again.

“A warning of what?”

“That maybe she’s better off not knowing. That maybe this is safer for everyone involved. If I tell her, I think we’ll get closer and that is- that is too dangerous.”

She breathes.

Feels her chest full and liquid and aching.

Doesn’t know when she realized that there was a next step to take with Cat, but feels it sharply as it leaves her tongue in a wave.

“You _need_ to stop being afraid of loving people, Kara. Loving someone doesn’t mean you’ll always have to protect them.”

She’d taken a breath before. She doesn’t then. She stares at Alex, sitting by her side, patiently, explaining, trying to make her understand things that hit that particularly vulnerable side she learned to ignore.

(and she hasn’t been doing a great job at ignoring it, she realizes as well. it’s been sweeping into her system since Cat stopped being a constant and it is the reason why she’s so tired and why things seemed to build up like a Babel tower)

“It did for you. You loved me and had to dedicate your life to take care of mine.”

“I also love Maggie. And that’s not how our relationship works.”

Kara looks down to her lap and her tingling fingers. She picks at the hem of her skirt, frowns because Alex had hugged her and glued her back together and now she has no excuse not to fix her life, not to take in advice and try to suck that vulnerable side dry.

“She overwhelms me.”

Her sister chuckles, drops a hand to her shoulder.

“Yeah, when a connection is strong enough, that tends to happen a lot.”

“Supergirl, ongoing armed robbery.” Vasquez interrupts them for a second, knowing to inform the hero despite the blonde not being on duty.

Kara nods, stands up at once.

“And Supergirl?” Alex calls her back, being careful with names as another agent walks into the room they had been occupying. “She already knows. She probably just wants to hear you say it.”

She manages a small, restrained smile. Because she will never be sure on how she got lucky enough to have Alex Danvers as her sister.

“Yeah,” She says. “probably.”

Twenty minutes after she’s done with the first pack of robbers, she picks up on another break in on the other side of town. She’d taken those blissfully quiet moments to text Cat and as she allows herself to drift off during the battle, her body on autopilot, the woman’s last reply rolls around in her head.

( _“It’s fine, Kara.”_

_“Is it?”_

_“I should be.”_ )

It should be

It should be.

She flies around the desert when she’s done with her heroism of the day.

Talking to Alex had glued her pieces back together, even if they are still sticky and can pretty much fall off at any sharp movements.

( _“Loving someone doesn’t mean you’ll always have to protect them.”_ )

Kara wants to take a step forward. She so desperately wants to.

Cat makes her feel happy, Cat makes her feel a bit more balanced. Cat inspires her and Cat’s smile makes Kara’s heart dance around her chest in an intricate routine.

But Cat had been dry on their messages. Had been mannerly and unemotional.

 _It should be fine_.

It wasn’t.

That last part went unsaid, however loud and clear.

Maybe Cat had given up.

Cat has always been so much more mature, when it came to letting things go.

Kara has watched the woman let go several times.

Romances, friendships, idealisms.

Cat lets go if there are too many traces of incorrigibility.

Except when it came to Supergirl.

Kara has witnessed, as an assistant and as the superheroine herself, as Cat kept trying to make sense of Supergirl’s acts. As Cat put her trust on the blond with an S across her chest and took public positions on her support of National City’s ‘ _Girl of Steel_ ’

Cat’s confidence in Supergirl has kept Kara going in more than one occasion.

And that is what makes her pause, that is what makes her float in the air and take her phone out for the third time to contact her former boss.

( _“I don’t think you can go on without her anymore. And you can’t keep her and also keep this secret.”)_

 

_6:05:14 PM_

_Kara Danvers:_

_Do you still need my help, Miss Grant?_

 

_6:10:03 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_If you are free, yes, that would be appreciated._

 

_6:10:34 PM_

_Kara Danvers:_

_I’m free._

 

_6:12:25 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_Well, then, we eat at seven. You can have dinner with us, taking Carter off my back about that in the process, and we can later work out the details of the party. Do you think you can make it?_

 

Kara smiles and loving doesn’t mean always protect. Loving means taking a step forward, means having dinner with Carter and forcing her throat to stay open and consequently keeping Cat close, letting go of a secret.

 

_6:16:17 PM_

_Kara Danvers:_

_Thank you, Miss Grant. And yes, I can make it._

 

The reply comes ten minutes later and Kara checks it while she lands on her flat, three minutes after getting a call from Alex amidst flying, three minutes after being informed that Jeremiah’s vitals were good and strong and that Eliza would be crashing with her oldest child for the night. Three minutes after she thanked her sister, after she said that she thinks she is ready.

 

_6:35:07 PM_

_Cat Grant:_

_Good._

 

She is so very afraid, but Alex had glued her back together, even if letting a bit of the work for Kara herself and Alex had said that she may lose Cat if she doesn’t brave up, so she puts on her subtle, ordinary-human outfit in a second and picks her tablet and her notepads.

Maybe Cat has given up, but she still needs to try.

 

|||

 

When Kara arrives, Cat doesn’t say much. Opens the door wearing one of those soft smiles she’d come up with during her time away, but she doesn’t say much.

Carter is in the living room, eyes focused on the TV, joystick in hand. Abby is by his side, sheets of paper spread around and crayons giving the carpet colorful lines.

Both of them look up when they hear the women approaching.

The teen pauses his game, walks over and gives Kara a hug. She doesn’t meet Cat’s eyes over his shoulder.

Abby keeps her place, but beams at her.

“’know how to draw a horsey?”

“I’m pretty good at drawing, I’d say.”

The girl kirks an eyebrow and simply extends the brown pastel in her direction.

Kara plops herself by the child, of course she does.

If not for the simple reason she’d do almost anything the Grant children asked of her, for the amused little snicker Cat tries to hide under her breath.

The penthouse owner soon disappears into the kitchen and Kara is just finishing up the horse’s neck when the three of them get called for dinner.

Cat hadn’t said much when Kara had arrived, and she doesn’t say much while they eat either.

The kids fill up the room with chatter, Abby going on and off in reality while recalling the events of the day.

And it hits her right in the chest, the girl’s willingness to fill Kara in on what happened in the family’s activities.

Once they finish eating, she helps clear the table and keeps Carter company when Cat goes to put Abby in her pajamas.

The duo take ten minutes to return, but once they do, the girl is dressed in a Wendy Darling nightgown and Carter asks Cat to sign a few papers for his school.

Kara doesn’t mind waiting, she really doesn’t. Can use the extra time to build her courage up and up and up.

When they hear the door closing down the hall, the youngest Grant picks up the drawing that had been sorted on top of a pile of papers and looks at Kara with those dark, deep eyes.

She finds the brown Crayon back in her hands in no time. She puts the half-finished ‘commission’ on the notebook she’d brought over and the improvised work-station on her knees so she can draw the horse and still stay seated on the couch.

Kara draws. She makes the lines and shadows and muscles. And she feels the girl by her side leaning closer and closer until Abby’s full weight is leant against her.

She doesn’t mind waiting, and she doesn’t mind the girl’s closeness either.

Cat comes back when Kara is debating whether or not to put a small signature on the bottom of the art-piece.

(She really is good at it, isn’t she?)

Cat comes back alone and takes a double look at her daughter.

Kara is half-afraid the woman may be mad because the frown atop the green eyes scare her a lot.

Scare her about not being trusted that near the kids, about honestly and truly not being completely welcome anymore.

Cat approaches them with the same easiness in her steps. The same soft lines and sweet voice as she always has when it comes to her children.

Abby lifts her arms the moment her mother is close enough

“Come on, Wendy, time to go to Neverland.”

It seems ordinary, that little phrase.

Said through an adoring sigh as the girl is picked up and wrapped her short legs around Cat’s waist.

It feels like routine, that movement. Of settling Abby in her hold and walking back into the corridor, disappearing behind a threshold.

Kara feels split.

An intruder, someone experiencing everything as an outsider, but also someone filled with want to merge herself into all the habits and tendencies lived inside those walls.

And yet again, she waits.

She waits a bit longer this time.

She doesn’t mind waiting. Doesn’t mind building up more courage and choosing to sink her hands into the good half of herself. The one who longs and the one who knows she can’t keep lying and can’t keep on taking the risk of losing the owner of the eyes and the voice and the smile and the heart that inspire her, that makes her feel grounded even when she is ten thousand feet above ground.

Kara closes her eyes and lets her mind wander. Allows her hearing to stretch and reach Abby’s soft voice.

( _I don’t like the queen o’ hearts, mommy_

 _Yes, she wasn’t that great, but she_ was _a pretty strong queen, wasn’t she?_

_‘Guess so.)_

Kara tugs her smile aside and allows herself to listen for a few more seconds as Cat goes back to reading.

And then she stops. Because she isn’t doing it while seeking for an explanation or a piece of information to help someone. She is doing it because she can. Because her ability is just _there_.

And it feels like sneaking.

She chooses to doddle on the last page of her notebook instead. She chooses to hear as the pen’s rollerball scraps against the surface, chooses to let her grip and, consequently, the ink, travel and mark white with black.

“What type of plant is that?”

Kara startles and holds her breath for a moment.

“It looks rare.” Cat carries on, sitting at an intermediary distance between a professional meeting and a casual conversation.

And Kara lets the air go, then. It’s time.

She wants to run out the window.

She wants to hide in a hole.

“It’s extinct, actually.”

“Hm.” Cat nods and seems to wait.

Kara keeps on breathing and keeps on sinking her hands into the _wanting_ part of her soul.

“I-”

“We should begin, shouldn’t we?”

Her sentence dies in her lips and she nods.

She takes notes. Because it is easy to dive right into being Cat’s assistant.

She gives input. Because she knows Cat and also knows practicality.

She keeps _wanting_ and her sentence keeps coming back to life.

There’s a moment, about thirty minutes after they started and when the rough draft of the guest list is set, that Cat stands to get a cup of water from the tray in a small table by the corner of the room.

There’s a moment and Kara takes it.

Takes it because Cat is turned towards the tray, not facing her and it is easier, to rip a Band-Aid with your eyes closed.

“I was thirteen when Krypton died.” She lets it go in a sigh and Cat’s back stiffens. “I was supposed to look after Kal-El. He was just a baby, then.” Kara chuckles a bit sadly, a bit oddly. Cat doesn’t face her. “But my pod got knocked into the Phantom Zone, which is basically a place where time doesn’t pass. I stayed there for twenty-four years. When I got here, Kal-El was already a man and he placed me with the Danvers because he trusted them and I was still a girl. And I was Kara _Danvers_ my whole life after that. Until my sister almost died. And then I couldn’t push it away anymore.”

“Push what away?” Cat’s voice is firm and smooth at the same time. Her posture slowly shifts to the side.

“The urge. The need to help.”

“Why?”

“Why I felt it?”

“Why did you push it away?” The woman fully turns, then. Turns and meets Kara’s eyes and her gaze is clear, has wonder and interest and _relief._

“Because the world already had a superhero.”

It’s a slow dance, the movements they make with their eyes. Cat’s shift slightly. Kara’s chase after the woman’s.

It’s a slow dance, the growing nearness. Cat’s feet take her towards the couch again. Kara’s heart beats harder at each step.

“But it didn’t have _you_ , Supergirl.”

Cat’s smile makes Kara’s heart dance around her chest in an intricate routine.

“Sometimes I feel like it may have been better off.”

The tears pinching her sight are traitors. This is a difficult moment, but also a progress. The tears pinching her sight should not exist.

“Do you want to say that to the people who got to keep their brains intact at the expense of your life?”

“I didn’t die.”

“Maybe not, but you were willing to and that already proves my point.”

There is a growing softness in Cat’s gaze that reminds Kara of the pure feeling she had once nurtured towards James. Only stronger, only sharper. Made sharper by the clarity of the green adorning it.

“I’m sorry.”

She dares. Right at that instant, she dares. She puts the tip of her fingers atop the woman’s hand.

Cat shakes her head, lets her another fond smile climb into her face.

“Oh, Kara, don’t.”

“Do you understand why I couldn’t tell you before?”

“Of course not. I can read a lot of people, Kara. I can read you and I found out who you were while having breakfast, but I cannot guess _that._ ”

She startles for the second time that night when her fingers, still barely touching Cat’s skin, are engulfed in warmth when the hand they were rested upon is turned and proceeds to hold her hand in a strange, comforting angle.

“But I won’t strip you of all your secrets at once.” The short-haired blonde finishes and Kara chuckles and she is relieved too. Feels Cat’s warmth sweeping through her arm and settling somewhere around her chest, filling a bit of that gaping abysm that had been leaking sadness into her body for the longest time.

“I don’t wanna lose-” Her throat tightens. She closes her eyes. Focuses on her fingers wrapped around Cat’s. “I don’t wanna lose you over them, _Cat._ I don’t wanna lose you over secrets.”

( _“Goodbye. And Kara?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“When you need me, you can call me Cat.”_ )

She keeps her eyes closed and she hears fabric shifting and feels something starting to lure above her extended arm, something getting nearer and nearer.

Kara feels it like it is just a new addition to her universe, the breath against her lips, the perfume still tightly attached to its owner.

Cat is half an inch away. Waiting.

Kara guesses the woman doesn’t mind waiting in this situation just as Kara herself doesn’t in every other one.

Still, Cat doesn’t move further, so she is the one who takes that last half an inch and the kiss is soft and simple and short lived.

It speaks of reassurance and new beginnings.

Cat pulls away just as she had leant in.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Not giving me long enough to let you go.”

Kara breathes.

Cat smiles.

Two hearts do intricate dances.

One of them still tries to hide the undoubted awareness that its holder usually wants things she cannot have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you are all wonderful and touch my little bleeding heart with your comments and kudos. Thank you again for that.
> 
> ps: you should never, under absolutely no circumstances, trust me with easily obtained happy ''''''''endings''''''''.
> 
> (chapter title from Chasing Cars, by Snow Patrol)


	4. we're interrupted (by the heat of the sun)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can thank adele winning on the grammys last night for this chapter coming early (er).  
> also, the only betaed chapter was the first one, so all mistakes are my own.  
> and you know the drill with this -> °°•°°  
> it shows up, we're changing POVs

Kara Danvers is not lucky.

She (along with everyone else who knows her) has full consciousness of that.

Those who know where she came from would definitely not say that being sent away from a dying world was luck.

Others who know her a bit closer, a bit deeper, would not call her love life a bubbling pit of good fortune either.

Her lack of triumphs in the _lucky_ area has long been registered on her mind.

Kara’s worked hard her whole life to make up for it.

Due to that she does not consider the fact that Cat reciprocates her affections a blessing from the luck-gods.

She considers it faith.

Because she’s worked hard her entire life and she’s also a big believer of faith. A big believer that you have a considerable number of paths to take in your days and each choice you make creates a new opportunity and brings along almost certain results.

Like aliens, for instance.

There are those who choose to live quietly, who adopt Earth as their home and, almost a hundred percent of the times, get enough peace to be happy.

There are also those, however, who come to Earth in order to bring chaos or seek revenge. Nine out of ten of those get their asses kicked by some sort of government organization and/or superhero.

Faith.

Kara is a fierce believer of faith, and when she says goodbye to Cat that night, her heart feels lighter and her steps hover slightly above the ground.

She gets home to a quiet apartment and an easy smile on her lips.

And then she remembers Jeremiah.

She remembers her sweet stepdad who deserved quiet evenings with the person he loved.

Her hands tremble as she calls Alex.

“He’s alright, Kara. J’onn and I think he might wake up tomorrow or so.” There’s a second of hesitance and she can almost see it, how her sister must look at Eliza, wherever the woman is close to Alex at that moment, with worry in her eyes. “Mom is alright too.”

“That’s great.” Kara sighs. Prays to Rao that Jeremiah wakes up. Prays that the Kryptonite is only meant to cause _her_ harm, that it doesn’t have any collateral effect on the man as well.

“How did it go tonight?” Alex has hope in her voice and Kara loves hope, hangs on to it more than she does to luck.

“Good.” She repeats, plays with the hem of her blanket with her free fingers. “Really good.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Yeah.” Kara takes a breath, lets it out and spends half a second noticing how she has to consciously force herself to breathe these days. “She kissed me.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I actually didn’t. Quit swallowing up the words.”

“She kissed me.”

Her words are clear now.

Ring around her ears and the apartment’s walls.

She focusses on that picture James had given her so long ago and reminds her of the pure feeling she once nurtured towards him. Reminds her of Cat and soft kisses and new beginnings.

“Oh my God.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Well…“

“I hate that you can read me so well. I hate that you can read everything around me so well.”

“Not always.”

Her sister sounds tired and regretful. Kara can’t have that.

“Sometimes I lock myself up so well that not even I can find the lock anymore.”

“Hm.” Alex sighs. So does Kara. “Don’t go all poetic on me. You being a journalist is already too much for my scientist brain.”

“Mood killer.”

“As sure as our yellow sun.”

She manages a chuckle.

It feels good, rests easy on her shoulders.

“And Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“This is a good thing you’re starting.”

“I think so.”

“I know so. Don’t run from it, okay?”

“Okay. G’night.”

“Don’t let the stardust bite.”

She smiles into her pillow when she settles down to sleep. She smiles into her pillow and feels soft lips against her skin and Cat’s perfume all around her.

Her eyes close and she doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep until she wakes up the next morning.

Kara goes in early to make up for her escape on the previous day.

Snapper gives her three dirty looks on the first ten minutes, but she shakes it off when her phone rings and she thinks about messaging Cat.

She does so.

A simple good morning as she’s evolving her latest article and simultaneously searching venues for the woman’s returning party.

Cat wanted it to be on a Saturday and she wanted it to be a family affair. Sophisticated in the right amount to catch media’s eyes, but cozy enough so coworkers could bring their children.

The woman had said she wanted to be available for Abby and Carter at all times on this new phase, that she wanted to work more flexible and suitable hours and wanted Catco to reflect that.

Kara finds a good place just as Snapper drops a thick file on her desk.

“Sort it, learn it and develop it by four p.m.”

“I actually had something else I wanted to run wi-“

“Oh, you disappear for a whole day and promote yourself to a senior journalist as well?”

“That’s not what I me-”

“You’re really close to getting your name kicked out from the board, Danvers. Shut your mouth and do the work.”

She closes a fist on her lap, thankfully out of view under the table, and nods.

Kara waits until the man is further away before taking a snap of the screen and the venue’s information and emailing it to Cat.

 

_8:48 A.M_

_kara.danvers@catcowmedia.com:_

_Found this spot and think it is worth taking a look into. Snapper is up my back, don’t know if I’ll be able to do anymore planning today._

She is not lucky.

He feelings for Cat being answered is not luck.

She thanks _faith_ and Alex when Cat calls on her lunch break and tells her to drop by the apartment that night as well.

 

°°•°°

 

There are few things Alex truly loves and is devoted to.

Kara is first and foremost.

Then comes her parents and J’oon.

(she doesn’t know how to explain it, but she feels just a deep a connection to the Martian as she feels to her dad)

Then the D.E.O

And then Maggie.

She’d struggled on whether to put her girlfriend before her job.

She actually tried that for a little while, but it only resulted in a deadly alien escaping his cage and Maggie not coming home for three days.

So her job comes first.

There are few things Alex is devoted to.

The person on top of the list is someone who she neglected. Someone who got lost and someone she helped find again.

Alex is devoted to her sister, so she listens patiently for a week as Kara calls her late at night with tales about the blonde’s latest interactions with Cat Grant.

When Kara tells her she got kissed, Alex smiles.

The next day Jeremiah wakes up. Her mom cries, the blonde alien hugs her and looks at the man through a safe distance.

That night, when Kara tells her it happened again and for longer, Alex feels a bit grossed out by the mental image, but also moved and glad for the spark makings its way back into her baby sister’s voice.

On the third night, Kara is doubtful because things were taking a straight direction and Cat had sent the her home early.

“The kids were home, Kar. And you guys have been so long coming that maybe she doesn’t want to mess it up with a hump.”

“Gross!” Kara squeals at the same time Maggie growls.

“You got what I meant.”

“Still.”

Kara does not call her on the fourth night and they do get a call into the D.E.O at 2 a.m, so they see each other anyhow. If the subject wasn’t Cadmus, she’d notice her sister’s fluid body language more easily.

They corner one of Lillian’s minions and when Alex shoots and breaks his kryptonite crest, Kara flies the guy straight to an interrogation room.

Vasquez says someone should go in with the superheroine, but Alex can feel it. In her heart and belly and brain, that this is something Kara not only needs, but also can, do alone.

They watch through the mirror as the blonde circles the chair where the man sits. Watch as Supergirl almost loses her patience twice and of course Alex is the one to put a palm against Hank’s chest to stop him from storming in.

Kara gets it together and does not lay a finger on the metahuman.

They put him away in a cell and log in the info.

Lilian is creating a new machine somewhere around the country. No one in Cadmus knows where, at least not by their prisoner’s reckoning.

“You didn’t call tonight.”

They are alone, Kara walking her to the car.

“Yeah.”

Alex sees her sister’s goofy grin through the edge of her sight.

“Any reason for that?”

Kara looks at her when they stop in front of her car and it downs on her like a tequila shot.

“Oh my God you got laid!”

Her mouth is covered by an iron-strong hand.

“Scream a little louder, will you?”

Her sister is blushing and Kara is on the top of her devotion list.

That doesn’t mean she can act like the older, more experienced sibling.

“I’m sorry, but it’s a bit funny to think that the girl of steel’s chastity belt comes off like butter.”

“Scre- Screw you! For now and forever.”

Kara flies away and Alex laughs.

The fifth night comes with another call.

“The party is tomorrow.”

“What does that has to do with me?”

“You’re going.”

“I have a job.”

“You’re going.”

“Why?” She whines. And she is not ashamed of it. She had plans of morning sex and rewatching Bridesmaids with her gorgeous girlfriend.

“A) you were the one who pushed me into telling her and consequently kickstarting this whole thing and B) it’ll be the first time we’re actually out in public since we started this thing and I have no Idea how to dress or how to behave and the right moment to approach her and-“

“Fine! I’m coming. Just chill out, alright?”

“I’m nervous.”

“I can see that.” Alex chuckles softly because Kara is her top priority, not out of duty, but out of love now.

“Can you drop by earlier? I need help not to look too nerdy.”

“She saw you taking nerdy to the next level for two straight years, you’ll be fine.”

“But-”

“Go with a dress. Navy. The V-necked one with marked waist and white ships print.”

“That’s specific.”

“I like it and you never seem to wear it.”

“Hm.”

“See you tomorrow, weirdo. Try not to freak out.”

“No promises. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Alex is half asleep when they get to the private park the event is taking place and Maggie’s hand is firm in hers.

Kara looks stunning and simple when they meet up at the entrance.

Things seem to flow.

They get in and there are photographers and also kids playing and light colors as decoration.

The sun is strong just to warm them up, not for uncontrollable sweating.

Things seem to flow.

Cat spots Kara and is making her way towards their group, but Alex notices a little girl walking ahead of the woman.

“Kara, did ya see the Peter Pan swing? Can ya go on a ride with me?”

Alex watches as her sister smiles down at the girl, as her sister nods, takes the extended palm into her own.

Alex watches as Cat finally reaches them and Kara and the woman lock eyes.

She hides the smile on her lips and Maggie nudges her shoulder to behave.

Things seem to flow.

Kara and Cat levitate around each other, exchange words and create conversation topics and the girl Alex guesses to be Abby seems content enough to wait.

Maggie pulls them into the talk and Alex never liked Cat Grant before, but the woman seems _softer_ and freer.

It makes her comfortable enough to forget about the unsettling secrecy of the relationship her sister and company-owner are trying to develop.

It makes her enjoy the sun and Maggie’s company through the morning.

Cat seems softer and freer and Cat and Kara seem to levitate towards each other.

That is why her heart stings with anger and resentment when a group of hugely-built green men crash into the party from the sky.

 

°°•°°

 

After five days of long talks and honest looks and warm touches, Kara feels settled and confident and bubbly.

It’s almost hilarious how everything comes crashing down.

It breaks her heart later, but, on the moment, it is almost hilarious.

She’s beside Cat and there is nothing new about that.

The woman is talking to a few reporters and Kara is listening to the nuances of her voice.

That’s when the men hit the ground and send chairs flying through the air at their landing.

Cat freezes for a second, but instinctively reaches out for Carter to her other side and Abby in his hold.

Kara disappears behind a toy and pulls out her dress. She hears and sees as the men begin to attack.

They are reckless and violent.

They must have known she would be here.

Maybe because Alex was there too. Maybe because Cadmus knows her secret identity.

She isn’t sure.

But they _are_ violent.

Toss people around and two go for blunt blows to tables and structures, aiming for the bigger damage possible.

Kara does her best to knock them out before anyone can get truly hurt.

She drops two out of four, but they have brass knuckles with kryptonite stones and the few times they manage to get a punch in, her skin breaks and she aches.

The third one is faster and bigger.

Makes her chase him around the park and she tries desperately not to hear the screams and not to think about how many are hurt.

She catches the guy and she’s going in for the second knee to the head when a distinctive noise captures her attention.

Cat’s yell of her son’s name.

Kara delivers the blow, but doesn’t look at the men anymore.

Instead, she sees Carter finishing his slide on the ground, his arms loose and Abby falling like a sack to his far left.

Cat screams again.

Kara sees black.

It’s almost funny how everything can collapse around you in a manner of seconds.

She comes to it with Alex staring right into her eyes.

First, she feels breathless.

Then, she feels the sting in her hand and sees how it is raised in a punch.

Lastly, she sees the man she beat to death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> try not to hate me _too_ much?  
>  see ya in a bit  
> as always, your reviews and kudos leave me ecstatic. thank you so much for them!  
> (title of the chapter from The Writer, by Ellie Goulding, even tho I prefer Kelly Clarkson's cover)


	5. i'm breaking at the bridges (and at the end of all your lines)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, I'm still here!!!!!!  
> so shit hit the fan in my emotional life and that lead to me not being able to write this fic for a long ass time.  
> truth be told, I was feeling quite disconnected from it for a while before I had to give myself a break, so that's why I kinda turned to blindspot for help and ended up posting something for that fandom intead of Supergirl.  
> buuuuuuuut _that_ fic inspired me to give _this one_ another shot.  
>  this chapter is the result.
> 
> warning: no beta, so any and all mistakes are my own.

When two people are involved in a particular situation, there are usually three sides of the story.

Each individual has its own point of view. How they interpret the information that develops around them.

And then there is what actually happens.

Here is Cat’s side:

She arrives a bit late, because she may be changing a lot, may even stay until the thing is over, but she will not be the first at the party.

The grass is green and the buffet tends are ready and the playground for the kids already set.

She delights on greeting the guests with her old sharp smile and changing it slightly when she poses with the kids for Catco’s article. She makes sure Abby is in her hold, facing away from the camera.

Carter, however, is at an age where he doesn’t necessarily care, so she lets him do his thing and pose looking to the lens.

Cat notices Kara later, probably only a few minutes after the woman enters the venue.

She notices Kara. Kara in blue. In a deep blue that compliments Cat’s own pale orange dress.

She notices Kara. Hair pulled back into a ponytail, waist adorned with a thin, white belt.

Smile blasting towards two brunettes.

Her heart doesn’t leap, her breath doesn’t become uneven. She’s been through enough relationships in her life to get used to the pulling towards someone.

But she smiles.

Smiles and starts walking towards the trio.

Her daughter gets there first.

She has been through enough relationships and also through enough parties.

So Cat doesn’t see much of it.

She sees her kids playing and reporters showing up with questions about the new era.

She sees the men dropping to the ground as well.

It’s around 4 P.M already, so Carter is hanging around her and Abby is in his hold, beat tired.

Cat’s first instinct is to reach for them.

Panic starts and Kara disappears.

Carter asks for the woman, but Cat tries to find them coverage.

Because whoever those men are, they aim for carnage.

Cat doesn’t see much, but she stands watch.

Pays attention as Kara ( _Supergirl)_ comes crashing through the sky and after the ones causing destruction.

When it happens, it is not something she sees. She has her back turned to Carter and Abby. Is peaking at the scene outside their little hiding.

When it happens, it is not something she see.

She feels it, more than anything.

Feels as her kids begin to tremble behind her, under the table as they are, and she feels as someone approaches.

Feels as the gush of wind hits her side and as the table, as well as her children, go flying away because of a kick.

The sound that escapes her is guttural. She feels it coming from her stomach.

She feels so much, but she only sees her boy sliding on the ground and her girl falling ten feet away.

Her eyes don’t leave her children, so Supergirl sweeping the man who just hurt her babies up up up is barely registered in her brain.

Supergirl approaching the ground at increasing speed, landing with a bang to her right is barely registered in her brain.

Just enough that she knows that it is safe, that she can go to her kids.

She is just not sure who she should go to first.

Carter makes the choice for her.

He stands up, an arm pressed against his ribs, and he runs to Abby.

The girl is crying and Cat wonders how she didn’t realize it.

As soon as she’s close enough, she goes over every inch of her daughter. And then her son.

“Carter, where are you hurt?”

“My side hurts a bit. Where he kicked.”

Cat nods.

She feels like punching something for her son’s pain.

“She’s killing him.” Her boy mumbles, eyes moving ahead of them when they are sure Abby is fine, just scared.

When two people are involved in a particular situation, there are usually three sides of the story.

Each individual has its own point of view. How they interpret the information that develops around them.

And then there is what actually happens.

The moment she looks up from the brown haired little girl, curled and weeping on her lap, that is the first time she notices Supergirl.

The first time she spares the superheorine ( _Kara)_ enough time to read her.

The blonde is on top of one of the men. Knee on his chest. Fists taking turns hitting the guy’s face.

They are close enough for Cat to see Kara’s eyes. Close enough for her to know that, right then, the woman is lost inside herself.

“Supergirl.” She calls. Her children have seen too much. Everyone has seen too much. They don’t need to see their shiny protector soaked in blood as well.

There’s no shift, though.

So she calls again, louder.

“Supergirl, stop.”

Kara doesn’t, but there is a quiver before the next punch.

Carter joins her on the third calling and that seems to do something, because Kara freezes, left fist in the air, hand trembling, dull eyes finding them.

“Supergirl, you have to stop.” Her beautiful son is the one who says it and then, then the heroine stands, looking at them still.

She makes to step closer to them.

Abby whimpers, makes herself smaller in Cat’s arms and Alex seems to step in front of Kara out of nowhere.

And maybe the combination of the sound of a scared child and her sister’s face is what brings the woman back.

Because Cat sees it too.

The second she can recognize the person she’d been falling for emerging through the shocked exterior.

°°•°°

Supergirl waits for the police. Maggie’s fingers stay pressed on Alex’s wrist the entire time.

Right now, she isn’t Kara’s sister.

She’s a victim of the attack.

The ambulances come in and there are quite a lot of them. It makes sense, in a way, for there are quite a lot of wounded too.

Cat Grant stays close to her kids, ignoring the reporters staring to hover.

They’d all watched it. As Carter and the little girl in his arms had been hit.

Her heart hurts for the kids and her heart hurts for their mom and her sister.

When J’onn arrives, he makes sure her name’s not on the witness list and takes Supergirl away.

“You should go, too.” Maggie tells her moments later.

“Kara will probably need you.”

“I can drop you off at my place and-”

“No.” Maggie interrupts her, smiles and rests a hand against her cheek. “I’m gonna help out here. Get a lift once this is cleaned up.”

“You sure?”

“Right now, you need to take care of your family, not me.”

She breathes. Kisses her amazing, understanding, wonderful girlfriend for a moment before taking the car keys and leaving.

The DEO is frantic, Hank walking around, trying to get the metahumans under their jurisdiction. The event was a mess and incredibly disheartening, but it was an advantage. Kara losing control was good, because they get to lock the attacker up and interrogate the hell out of him.

“Where do you need me?”

“With Supergirl. She’s not great.”

The way J’onn’s eyes gleam makes her stomach drop even further.

He is right, though. Her sister is everything _but_ great. She’s crying and Winn is doing his very best to calm her down. Alex knows those cries, knows the self-loathing.

When Winn notices her, his shoulders sag.

They both put an arm around Kara, and they let her sob.

Eventually, he is called away and it’s just them. The Danvers. The resilient ones.

“I love you, Kara.” She mumbles and her sister cries.

“I can’t handle it anymore, Alex. I can’t I can’t I can’t. Every damn time something _good_ happens, they find a way to rip it from me and I can’t. _I can’t_ keep fighting them.”

“Hey, hey.” She puts a hand under Kara’s chin, makes it so their eyes meet. “We’ll get them, Sun. We’ll get them and you’ll help and Earth will be safer for everyone because of that.”

“We’ve been saying that for months. We’ve been saying that before Jeremiah and after him and we’ve been saying _just a little more_ , _we’re almost there_ and we aren’t!” Kara rips herself away from Alex, stands up and paces. The tears keep falling. “And yeah, Cadmus has hurt everyone before. But today they hurt _kids_ , Alex. They hurt Carter and Abby and five other little kids who have never done a _single_ evil thing in their lives.”

“Kara-”

“They could’ve died. Because of me. Because I’m not from this world and no matter how much I help, I’ll never be good enough for Earth.”

“You are.”

“I _know!_ I know I am and this is my home. But they don’t know that. They don’t care. They hate us just because we exist and I can’t fight them anymore.” Kara looks up, cleans her face and her sister is so beautiful, so brave and she wants to kill everyone involved with Cadmus all over again. “I can’t lose her too, Alex.”

“Cat?” Their eyes meet again and she gets it. Cat Grant is the final tread of hope Kara is holding on to. Is the last new, exciting thing Kara has to look forward to. Can imagine a future about. “J’onn made the ambulance bring them here. They are in the medical bay.”

Alex feels it, as the air changes and the woman standing in front of her freezes.

“Are they okay? How-“

“Go see it for yourself.”

She tilts her head towards the door and Kara is the one person she loves the most. The one person she knows throughout. They talk without words.

She sees it in the set of her sister’s shoulders and the softness in her eyes that the blonde is dead scared and dead tired and just dead _something_.

It takes a few moments, but step by step she is left alone in the room.

Alex agrees with Kara, they can’t keep on fighting Cadmus for much longer. Supergirl is their armor and she’s hanging by a tread.

°°•°°

She takes her time changing out of her costume. She undocks the cape, folds it, puts it in a corner. Then her boots. Then the suit. Then the pantyhose. It feels final, in a way.

Not like she’s saying goodbye, not like she’s putting Supergirl away. But like the closing of a chapter. Like the ending of a phase where she was a kid and was hopeful and overly bright. Maybe Supergirl is growing, maybe Supergirl is dying. She’s not really sure.

She takes her time, and she doesn’t think of much else besides what she’s doing.

Kara puts on jeans, a t shirt, one of her long cardigans and her UGG boots. She needs comfort, she needs shielding. And it’s not like she sweats, so being overly covered on the warm day doesn’t really bother her.

As she walks towards the medical bay in short, slow steps, she’s aware of the glances she receives. Agents, trainees, tech guys. Everyone knows what she’s done and everyone has an opinion about it.

Kara is glad that J’onn is the one who can read minds, and not her.

She spots Cat before the woman sees her and it brings her back to that morning. It brings her back to that morning and the butterflies in her stomach and the smile she couldn’t control and Abby’s tiny hand in her own.

“Hi.”

Her voice is small. Her jaw tight. She’s so tired and scared and Cat’s eyes meet hers and there is so many similar feelings in the woman’s gaze.

“Kara!” Someone crashes against her and it’s Carter. It’s sweet young Carter with his face in her shoulder and his arms around her.

She hugs him back. Breathes in his smell and she so desperately wants him to be okay. She so desperately wants him to be whole.

“Carter, your ribs.” Cat’s voice isn’t small. Cat’s voice is firm and warm and Kara’s fingers flex against Carter’s t shirt, desperately wanting to do the same to his mother.

“His ribs?” She asks as he pulls away. Cat nods, sighs, shifts Abby in her hold.

“I’ve got two bruised ones.” He sighs, rubs the place where said ribs probably are. “But they don’t hurt that much.”

Kara looks at Cat.

Cat looks away, down to her son again.

“That’s because of the medicine. You still have to take it easy.”

Carter ignores his mom, turns his attention towards Kara once more.

“Where were you?”

“I-“ She chokes. Not audibly, but she chokes. She needs Cat to look at her. She needs to know what to say, how to explain. She needs Cat, but Cat has her eyes closed and lips kissing Abby’s temple. “I remembered I’d left my phone in the car. So I went to get it. To call Supergirl.”

He frowns and she can see it, plain and simple, that he doesn’t believe her.

“Mom, can we go now that Kara is here?”

“I’ll see if anyone can drive us.” She is already turning towards the door when

“Don’t. Harry, or whatever his name is, already got us settled.” Cat is the one who says it, but her gaze is still so so so far away from Kara’s. Her hold over Abby is still so so so protective.

Carter keeps his steps close to her and Kara isn’t sure if she really should tag along. She still goes, though. She indulges herself because Cat doesn’t say that she shouldn’t.

J’onn arranged for a towncar and it is almost comical, how they are all forced to share the backseat.

The drive isn’t long, but it is incredibly silent. Carter falls asleep with his head leaned against Kara and she wants to cry and smile at the same time.

When they get to Cat’s building, the boy heads straight for his room and Cat sets Abby in on hers.

They avoid the living room. It feels wrong, to have such a risky conversation in the place where everything started.

They go to the kitchen instead. Cat pours two glasses of whiskey without asking a question and when she puts one down in front of Kara, it reminds her of when she crashed against the ground with the man.

She doesn’t remember much of the fight. Bits and pieces pop up in her memory, but most is just a blur.

They drink. And they don’t talk. When they are done, she is the one who puts their cups on the sin before taking a seat on the island’s stool.

She plays with the loose fibers of her cardigan for a moment. Trying to be brave, trying to feel like the hero she’s supposed to be. She brings her head up when she feels someone in front of her.

And then, then she finally meets Cat’s gaze and she feels like she’s crashing again, but she is crashing alone and into everything she holds close to her chest.

“Oh, Kara.” Cat breathes and steps closer to her. A hand in Kara’s upper arm, another in her cheek and the tears start sliding down another time.

“I’m sorry.” She begs and Cat nods. “I didn’t mean for them to get hurt. I really didn’t, Cat.”

The woman nods again. Hugs her and dear Rao, Kara feels like her chest is caving in and her very soul is sleeping away. She can’t handle this anymore. This constant aching and persecution and this bang bang bang of losses and hatred and near wins.

“I know.” Cat whispers and Kara sobs.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cat pulls away and no no no please don’t. Rao, I’m sorry, please don’t.

But Cat frames her face, Cat cleans the tears away and Cat kisses her softly.

“You need to tell me who those men were.”

“I know.” She sighs, dips in the feeling of Cat’s forehead against her own and Cat’s breath hitting her skin and Cat’s hands on her cheeks.

“And I think Carter is figuring it out.”

She doesn’t ask.

Kara doesn’t ask _figuring what out?_

Because it is so obvious. The boy hadn’t believed her, because she’d gotten revenge on the exact same man who’d hurt them.

 _Carter is figuring it out_.

Cat pulls them back into another hug and she feels it, in this one, how it is as much for the woman as it is for her.

And she can’t take losing Cat. She can’t.

They haven’t even started yet.

She wants to take the woman out for dinner and try to make her eat some pot sickers and she wants to have a _relationship_ and double dates with Alex and Maggie and she wants everything involving Cat Grant.

She can’t take losing Cat.

She’s lost too much already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, Kara cries a lot.  
> sorry?  
> and also, I'm not sure when the next update will be (even tho there will definately be one), due to me still struggling with some leftover garbage from the pile I ended up collecting so... uhm... see you in a while??? however long that is???  
> ps: your reviews are amazing and warm my tiny heart

**Author's Note:**

> fic title is a translation from the song Dançando by Agridoce, a Brazilian band.


End file.
